


Fresh Meat

by devovitsuasartes



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Cannibalism, Dubious Consent, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2018-09-23 15:04:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9662642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovitsuasartes/pseuds/devovitsuasartes
Summary: Ian really thinks that he and Mickey could be best friends, if he can just persuade Mickey not to eat him.





	1. Fresh Meat

The sun is setting, and Ian is too far from home.

It’s his own fault. He’s strayed out farther than ever before in search of supplies, and he came across a cache of canned food in the basement of a house. He was so excited that he ran around searching for an extra bag with which to carry it all home, and by the time he emerged from the basement the sky was already turning orange.

There aren’t many safe places in Chicago these days. It’s been eight years since the evacuation, since Ian was left behind, and nature is well on its way to reclaiming the city. It spread out from the parks, from the scrublands, from anywhere with bare earth. There’s ivy climbing the buildings, weeds poking up through the sidewalks, and little beds of wildflowers growing in the grills of abandoned cars. The buildings are heavily degrading: windows broken, doors rotting away. Not a lot of places to hide.

Ian curses under his breath as he turns in a circle, desperately searching for anywhere that looks like shelter. He can’t be caught outside after dark. He’s seen what happens to people who made that mistake. Seen what was left.

Ian hasn’t seen another living person in over two years.

Home is the same place it’s always been: the house in the South Side where Ian grew up. He’s boarded up the windows, reinforced the doors, started a little garden out back where he can grow vegetables. Not much, but enough to sustain him. He’s rigged up a system to catch and filter rainwater. He’s kept busy. If he focuses just on the task of survival, he doesn’t have to look at the bigger, scarier questions.

The sun is very low now. Ian knows that soon he’ll start to hear the noises. The jibbering. The howls. The sounds that he’s so used to now, he can sleep through them. But you can’t be outside at night. You can’t.

Hefting his backpack higher on his shoulders, Ian starts jogging back towards the South Side. It’s too far, there’s no way he’ll make it, but he has to do something. Maybe if he keeps moving, he’ll spot somewhere safe to hide for the night.

The shoulder bag with the extra cans of food bounces heavily on Ian’s hip, bruising him. It’s dark now, so dark. He can hear the noises starting up in the distance. He grits his teeth, cold sweat breaking out all over his skin.

 _There._ An old gun store. Solid metal shutters on the windows, a chain link shutter in front of the door that’s raised just high enough for Ian to slide under it. He sprints over to it, slings his bags under the gap. There’s so little room that he has to drop down onto his belly, wriggle under the partition, the rough ground scraping his hips and stomach. Finally, he’s through to the other side. He presses his hand gently against the door, closes his eyes, prays to whoever’s listening that it’s not locked, then pushes.

It’s not locked.

Ian drops his bags onto the floor with a noisy clatter. Stares around the gun store. Feels dread start to roil in the bit of his stomach.

Someone is living here.

There’s meat drying on a makeshift rack in front of a smoldering fire pit. Bottles of dirty water stacked against the wall. A pile of sheets and clothes that seems to be being used as a bed. And weapons: guns and knives lined up neatly on the counter. The guns look well-maintained, but Ian can see old blood stains on the knives.

Ian can’t leave now. He has to stay. His only hope is that whoever lives here met a terrible end at some point today, and is lying dead in the street or stranded too far from home.

Then he hears the footsteps approaching outside.

There’s no time to waste, no point in hoping that whoever lives here is friendly. Ian runs across the store as silently as he can, vaults over the counter as he hears the rattle of the shutter outside being pulled up, then slammed back down. Ian tucks himself into the small space underneath the counter, concentrates on silencing his breathing as he hears the rattle of the shutter being pulled all the way down. Then there’s a _bang_ as the door bursts open, and Ian hears harsh breathing - growling, really. Like an animal.

His heart is pounding in his chest. Ian couldn’t be more trapped if he tried. This place only has one exit, and even if Ian could run fast enough to get past whoever just came home, he can’t leave. Leaving is a death sentence. If the person comes around the counter, they’ll spot Ian easily, and they probably won’t wait for an explanation. He’s fucked.

Unless…

Ian hears the person sit down heavily, hears the grunts and noisy saliva-flecked sounds of them chewing. Probably eating some of the meat that was drying on the rack. It sounds like the person is on the bed, which could mean they’re about to settle in for the night. If that happens… maybe Ian can wait it out.

He only needs to wait until dawn. It’s summer and the nights are short. He can stay awake, wait for the first light to peek over the horizon, and sneak out before this person wakes up. They don’t even need to know that he was here. Then Ian can go back home - back to his garden and his bed and the family photos that he’s carefully saved. He can forget this whole nightmarish night ever happened.

The chewing noises have stopped now. Ian can hear the crackling of the fire, which seems to have been given fresh fuel. There’s smoke in the air, clinging to the ceiling. Those harsh breaths are starting to even out. The gun store’s occupant is falling asleep.

Ian waits, watching his watch. Fifteen minutes pass, then half an hour, then forty-five minutes. He can hear the noises outside, the noises he doesn’t like to think about, the noises he’s learned to ignore. Underneath them all, however, he can hear soft, even breaths.

And Ian is… curious.

Two years, it’s been, since he last saw another living human being. Two long, lonely years of surviving and nothing else. No interactions, talking only aloud to himself, to prevent his voice from getting rusty.

He works constantly - gathering supplies, tending the garden, securing the house - to try and stave off the aching, all-encompassing loneliness. And it used to work, but lately it hasn’t worked so well. Lately, it’s started to catch up to him.

Ian stretches one leg out. Then the other. He listens carefully. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, he maneuvers himself out from under the counter. It takes a full ten minutes before he’s finally in a crouching position, and Ian starts to straighten up, peeks over the counter.

There, on the bed. A shape. Pale, pale skin smeared with dirt. Dark hair. Short, but solidly built. It’s a man, definitely a man.

Ian straightens up a little more, takes a couple of steps towards the end of the counter, keeping his eyes on the stranger the whole time. The man is wearing a tank top, ragged and stretched and stained, and pair of sagging sweat pants. He’s fallen asleep in his boots.

He rolls over in his sleep.

Ian ducks down behind the counter again, his heart pounding - both from fear of being caught and the thrill of seeing another person again. He allows himself to indulge in a fantasy of going out there, greeting his roommate, introducing himself. Walking the empty streets of Chicago with someone by his side. Laughing, telling jokes, sharing food. Having sex, maybe. God, Ian misses sex. He didn’t get a good look at the man out there, but Ian hasn’t had sex with another person for more than six years. He’s not picky.

Of course, that’s all it is. A fantasy. If he were to go out there, wake up this stranger, the best thing that Ian could hope for would be a swift death.

Another hour passes. Ian closes his eyes. Listens to the soft, even breaths turn to deep, guttural snores. Imagines that the breathing belongs to a long-time companion. Imagines walking with someone, eating with someone, talking to someone, sleeping with someone.

And despite his well-laid plans to stay awake, Ian drifts off to sleep.

* * *

 Ian’s woken by a ragged, hacking cough, and the sound of someone spitting. He jerks awake, his blood freezing as he realizes he’s overslept. The other man is awake already, moving around the gun store. Ian grips his backpack tightly, panicking, wondering how the hell he’s going to get away.

The morning silence is broken by a strange whining sound. It sounds familiar, but Ian can’t quite place it. In any case, it’s enough to mask the sound of him moving, and Ian doesn’t waste the opportunity. He creeps along the counter, staying low, rounds the corner and peeks out into the room, his heart thudding.

The stranger is hunched in a corner in front of a dirty, half-broken mirror. He has an old electric shaver, and he’s running it over his face. The gesture seems out of place; by all accounts, this man seems to care very little about his appearance. But Ian isn’t going to stop and ask questions. This could be his only chance.

Slowly, oh-so-slowly, watching the floor to make sure his feet don’t connect with anything that might give him away, Ian sneaks across the gun store. There are only twenty feet between him and precious freedom, and the guy who lives here is focused on shaving. Ian can do this, he can escape.

Just fifteen feet now. Ian concentrates on breathing evenly, silently, despite fight or flight reactions raging through his body.

Then the sound of the electric shaver stops.

Ian freezes.

Dread coursing through him, he looks over at the corner of the room. Sees a single blue eye in the mirror - staring right at him.

Ian bolts.

He hears the stranger’s shoes squeaking on the floor, a low growl like a junkyard dog. Ian reaches the door, flings it open and throws himself through.

He hits the chain-link shutter.

Which is padlocked shut at the bottom.

Before the despair has time to really hit him, Ian is slammed forward painfully into the shutter, caught between the cold metal and a hot, fetid-smelling body at his back. A hand winds its way into his hair, tightens its grip, wrenches his head back. Then there’s a knife at Ian’s throat, the cold edge scraping the underside of his jaw.

‘What’ve we got here?’ a voice murmurs in his ear. ‘Fresh meat, huh?’

‘I didn’t steal anything!’ Ian says desperately. ‘I just needed shelter, I got stranded after dark... Ahhh!’ He winces as the stranger yanks on his hair.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ the man snaps. He drags Ian back, back into the gun store, forcing him to comply or risk the knife slicing into his throat. As the door slams shut behind them, Ian is pushed forward, staggers, crashes to the floor, and when he looks up there’s a gun pointed at him.

Ian looks past it, looks up at his captor. The man is young, about Ian’s age, he thinks, though it’s hard to tell under the layer of dirt. He’s still wearing the clothes he slept in - tank top, sweat pants, boots - and it looks like he’s been wearing them for a long time. His lips are pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. He looks wild, feral, dangerous.

Keeping the gun trained on Ian, the man walks over to the counter, grabs a pair of handcuffs, tosses them over.

‘Put ‘em on. Chain yourself to that pipe,’ he instructs, tipping his head to indicate the pipe in question.

Ian hesitates. ‘Please, I didn’t want any trouble, I just…’

The man fires off a round. The noise is deafening in the small store. Ian ducks instinctively as the bullet buries itself in the wall behind him, missing him by barely an inch.

‘OK, OK, OK!’ he pleads, scooping up the handcuffs and snapping one cuff closed around his wrist. In his desperation to placate his captor, he closes the cuff too tight. He crawls over to the pipe, goes to snap the other cuff around it.

‘No, you dumb fuck!’ The stranger jerks the gun in warning. ‘Put the chain behind the pipe and cuff both hands. Jesus fucking Christ.’

Ian complies, feeling his heart sink as he snaps the second cuff in place. He’s completely at this man’s mercy now, and it doesn’t seem like that’s a good place to be.

With Ian now helpless, the man lowers the gun and approaches. His face is only half-shaved, which somehow makes him look even scarier. He picks up Ian’s backpack, unzips it, turns it upside down and shakes it - cans clattering onto the floor and rolling everywhere. He grunts in approval, then turns his attention to Ian.

‘Let me go,’ Ian begs, as soon as he makes eye contact with the stranger. ‘Please, just let me…’

‘Keeping talking and I’ll cut your tongue out,’ the man warns, waggling his knife in his fingers to emphasize the point. Ian shuts up.

The man crouches down in front of him, chewing the inside of his lip thoughtfully. He looks up and down Ian’s body slowly, analytically. He reaches out with the hand not holding the knife and grabs Ian’s thigh, squeezes it through the worn material of his jeans, then slides his hand down to Ian’s calf and does the same there.

‘Mmm,’ he hums appreciatively. ‘Fat.’

Ridiculous as it is, Ian finds himself offended by the remark. ‘I’m not fat,’ he retorts indignantly, briefly forgetting about the threat the man had made.

Fortunately, the stranger seems to have forgotten the threat as well. He chuckles darkly. ‘You’re fatter’n a cat or a dog or a rat,’ he says. ‘Not much meat on them at all.’

Ian swallows, a fresh wave of fear rolling over him. When things had got bad, when food got scarce, he’d heard… rumors. Desperate people, doing desperate things to survive. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, had chalked the rumors up to hysteria.

‘What are you going to do?’ Ian whispers, not really wanting to hear the answer.

The stranger looks him in the face, finally. And he smiles. 

* * *

‘My name is Ian Gallagher. I have two sisters and three brothers. I always wanted to join the military, be an officer. I like the way the air smells when there’s a storm on the way. My favorite music is…’

‘I know what you’re doing,’ the cannibal says mildly, sharpening a huge knife with a whetstone, occasional sparks bouncing off the blade. ‘Save your breath, it ain’t gonna work.’

‘I’m making it so you can’t ignore the fact that I’m a human being.’

The cannibal pauses, looks up at him, bares his teeth in a wicked grin. ‘I know you’re human, Red. That’s why I’m gonna eat ya. You ever had human? It’s delicious. Tastes like pork.’

‘My name is _Ian,’_ Ian repeats doggedly. ‘And if you’re hungry, I have food. I can take you to my place. I have a vegetable garden…’

‘I don’t want vegetables. I want _meat.’_ The final word comes out lower than the rest. The cannibal looks up at Ian, his eyes bright and expression eager. ‘This ain’t about hunger, not really. I got food. But everything tastes shitty these days. All the good food is gone. Except you.’ The cannibal points his knife in Ian’s direction. ‘You’re gonna taste great. I can tell.’

‘I’m really not,’ Ian says hastily. ‘I’m skin and bone, seriously. And I used to smoke. A pack a day, most days. That probably ruined the taste.’

‘Nothin’ wrong with smoked meat,’ the cannibal jokes. ‘Careful, Red, all this talk is making me hungry.’

‘Ian.’

Abruptly, the cannibal sets his knife and whetstone down, marches across to where Ian is cuffed to the pipe, squats down in front of him, shoves his dirty face right up close.

‘Ian,’ he repeats. ‘Eeee-an. Ian Gallagher. There, I said your fuckin’ name, and you know what? I’m still gonna eat you, Ian Gallagher.’ He casts a slow, indulgent gaze down Ian’s body, pulls his lower lip into his salivating mouth and swipes his tongue over it. ‘Fuck. You’re gonna taste so good.’

Ian’s heart is pounding. ‘Tell me your name,’ he says suddenly, spontaneously.

The cannibal’s eyes flick back up to look at him guardedly. ‘What?’

‘It makes no difference, right? At least let me die knowing who it is that’s gonna eat me.’

There’s a pause, and then the cannibal says, ‘Mickey.’ The two syllables are sharp, clipped. ‘And you’ll have plenty of time to learn it. I ain’t gonna kill you right away.’ He drops a hand to Ian’s calf, rubbing the muscle. ‘I’m gonna cut bits off you, cook ‘em up while they’re real fresh. Keep you alive for as long as possible. I could have fresh meat for days. Maybe weeks. You look strong. I bet you’ll last a while.’

Ian stares at Mickey, the speech ringing in his ears. ‘Have you done this before?’ he croaks.

Mickey nods. ‘Oh yeah.’

‘When? I mean… I haven’t seen anyone else for like, two years. I didn’t know there was anyone else left.’

Mickey shrugs. ‘So it’s been a while. It’s like riding a bike, right?’

There are a few seconds of silence as Ian turns the situation over in his mind. At last he says, quietly, ‘We might be the only two people left. And you’re gonna kill me and eat me. Not necessarily in that order.’

‘Yep.’ Mickey sits back on his haunches, rubs the back of his hand over his mouth.

Ian opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then asks, in a rush, ‘Don’t you _miss it?’_

‘Miss what?’ Mickey furrows his brow. ‘Eatin’ people?’

‘No, not eating people, _talking_ to people. Being around people. Interacting with people. Don’t you miss that?’

Mickey doesn’t reply. He’s looking at Ian curiously, like Ian is a puzzle he wants to figure out.

‘God, I miss it,’ Ian continues, resting his head back against the wall, staring at Mickey’s pale, grubby face. ‘I miss it so much. You know I’m actually enjoying myself right now? I’m handcuffed to a pipe by a guy who’s going to _eat me,_ but all I can think about is how nice it is to have someone to talk to.’

There’s a beat of silence. Then Mickey says, ‘You’re a freak, ya know that?’

Ian laughs despite himself. ‘Says the cannibal.’

‘No, don’t fuckin’ turn this around on me. I just want a nice meal, that’s normal. You’re a fucking weirdo.’

He scratches his eyebrow with his thumbnail, and then grins lopsidedly. It’s not like his previous smiles - predatory, wicked, mocking. It’s a genuine smirk of amusement, and it changes Mickey’s face. Makes him look less animalistic, more like a normal person. He’s not bad-looking, Ian thinks. He wants to see what Mickey looks like, under all that dirt.

‘Maybe a little conversation would be nice,’ Mickey admits at last. ‘I’m starting to think maybe I’ve gone kinda strange.’


	2. Free Range

The nights are getting longer now, as Chicago trudges forward from summer into fall, and already Ian is dreading the winter months. He’ll be trapped inside most of the time, and he won’t be able to grow any vegetables. He keeps a chart of sunrise and sunset times in his house, and every winter he counts down the days until the solstice - until the days will start getting longer again.

This year, though, things might be better. Because now Ian has Mickey.

They have this bizarre routine, like something from a bygone age, where they take it in turns to visit each other for dinner and sleep over afterwards. This happens a couple of times a week. Ian is best at farming and scavenging for food, so when he visits the gun store he’ll bring along fresh vegetables or tinned fruit or ancient crackers. Mickey is a hunter, so he provides the meat. Sometimes it’s cured meat, sometimes it’s still bleeding. Sometimes Ian can tell what it is (rats are unfortunately distinctive), and sometimes he can’t. He never asks.

Mickey hasn’t eaten Ian, though whenever the topic comes up he always adds the ominous caveat, “ _yet_.” His nickname for Ian is “Free Range,” and he has a habit of poking Ian in the ribs and stomach as a form of greeting, grinning wickedly as he does so. ‘Getting fatter, Free Range,’ he says. ‘That’s some prime organic beef right there.’

Ian isn’t sure if Mickey is joking or not. He’s definitely not joking about having eaten people before, but he let Ian go and he hasn’t tried to eat him again since. Maybe Mickey really is just fattening him up to make him taste better when the time comes. Or maybe, like Ian, Mickey actually enjoys the company.

They don’t have set days of the week for visits, but it’s Ian’s turn to host and he has a feeling that Mickey is going to show up tonight, so he sets aside the ingredients for a stew. Sure enough, about an hour before sunset there’s the sound of a fist hammering on the front door, and Ian smiles privately before heading to the front of the house. He draws back the bolts and chains and opens the door to find Mickey wearing a smirk on his grubby face.

‘What’s up, Free Range?’ he asks, lifting a plastic bag with blood smeared on the inside and an unpleasant-looking lump sitting heavy in the bottom. ‘This is a potluck, right?’

Ian takes the bag from him, wanders inside the house. ‘Bolt the door behind you,’ he calls back over his shoulder.

‘Right, right. Don’t want any foxes in the henhouse.’

‘Except me, right?’ Ian glances back at Mickey, throws him a wink, then turns away before he sees the reaction. He’s been doing this more often lately, dropping ambiguously flirtatious remarks just to test the waters. Most of the time Mickey just ignores them, or looks confused. Still, it can’t hurt to keep trying.

The meat is dark and very fresh, and Ian does his best not to look too closely at it, even as he sets it down on his cutting board in the kitchen and starts slicing it up for the stew. Mickey wanders in behind him, sits down at the table and watches Ian work, chewing on one of his filthy fingernails. The Gallagher household isn’t exactly well-kept - when Ian does any maintenance at all, it’s usually just reinforcing the barricades on the windows - but it’s a lot more like a home than Mickey’s gun store. When they eat here, it feels weirdly domestic.

‘I found a bunch of comic books the other day, when I was out searching houses,’ Ian says, to break the silence. ‘You can borrow some, if you want.’

Mickey snorts. ‘What do I want with comic books?’

‘I dunno. Pass the time?’

‘I can think of better shit to do. Here…’ Mickey reaches into his pocket, pulls out two small pots, sets them down on the table. ‘Found some salt and pepper. Add some, it’ll bring out the flavor.’

Ian raises an eyebrow. ‘Who’s the chef here?’ he teases, even as he grabs the seasoning and lines it up with the rest of his ingredients. He pours a measure of his precious reserve of cooking oil into the pot, tosses in some onions and garlic and a tin of puréed tomatoes, adds the meat and salt and pepper, stirs it all together. Ian isn’t a great cook, and his little camping stove isn’t ideal, but before long a delicious smell starts to rise from the pot.

Then another strong smell creeps in, and Ian jumps a little as he realizes Mickey has moved to stand by his side and is peering into the pot. ‘Not bad, Free Range,’ he comments, and as he takes over stirring the stew Ian steals a chance to stare at the pale spikes of hair on Mickey’s jawline, at the sweat and dirt dried into the lines of his face and neck, at the limp, greasy tangle of Mickey’s hair. He’s wearing his usual uniform of sweats and a tank top, but in deference to the chilly weather he’s also shrugged on an open woolen sweater, grey and old and sagging, falling off one pale shoulder.

Ian realizes his eyes are drying out from staring too long, blinks and swallows. Mickey is filthy and dangerous and morally reprehensible, and Ian wants so very desperately to fuck him. Or if Mickey doesn’t want that, Ian would settle for just sleeping next to him, or pulling Mickey on top of him and feeling the warm, comforting weight of him. They always sleep apart when they stay over, but Ian likes to watch the slow rise and fall of Mickey’s chest and fantasize about lying down next to him, pressing in close, resting a hand on his sternum to feel the fluttering of his heartbeat.

Sometimes, Ian wonders if Mickey thinks about eating him in the same way. If, when he turns his back, Mickey eyes up his flanks and imagines them sliced up and sizzling on a grill, rubbed with salt and pepper. If even now, stirring this mystery meat into the stew, Mickey is secretly wishing that it was Ian in the pot.

When it’s done, Ian serves up the stew in two bowls and sets it on the table. He lays out cutlery as well, but Mickey ignores it. He hunches over his bowl protectively, eats with his hands. Before long there’s tomato sauce smeared around his mouth, dripping from his fingers, and Ian chews his food on autopilot as he watches Mickey’s strong, yellowing teeth tear into a hunk of meat, exposing the pink still at the center. Mickey grunts appreciatively as he eats, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and then licks the meat juice and sauce off it, making a mess where it drips onto the table.

After a while Mickey catches Ian staring, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He lifts his soaked chin defiantly, holds Ian’s gaze as he chews. After he swallows his mouthful he asks, ‘Scared, Free Range?’

Ian attempts a nonchalant shrug and jokes, ‘You know, it’s bad manners to put your elbows on the table while you’re eating.’

Mickey stares at him, his eyes bright and blue and sharp, then smirks with his thick, sauce-stained lips. Ian smiles back, glances at where Mickey’s sweater has fallen off his shoulder and notices a fresh scrape and bruise on his bicep.

‘What happened?’ he asks.

Mickey glances down, looks surprised when he sees the injury. ‘Huh,’ he says. ‘I was hunting uptown, got jumped by a couple of guys.’

Ian stops eating. Stares at Mickey, trying to figure out if he’s joking. ‘What?’

‘Fuckin’ assholes. Made ‘em regret it.’

‘Wait, you’re serious? You saw… there are _other people_ still living here?’

‘There _were_ ,’ Mickey corrects, and something about the way he scoops up another helping of stew into his mouth gives Ian pause. He looks down at his own half-eaten portion of stew, at the grey-brown lumps of meat mixed in with the vegetables.

Mickey is watching him, his face giving nothing away. Ian takes a few long, deep breaths through his nose. But he doesn’t ask. He never asks.

Slowly, deliberately, Ian lifts another spoonful of stew to his mouth. It tastes good.

By the time they’re both finished eating the sun has set and the noises are starting up outside. Ian checks all the windows and doors, makes sure the house is secure. He washes up, brushes his teeth. It helps, makes him feel like things are still normal.

There are plenty of free rooms in the Gallagher house now. Mickey could have a room to himself when he stays over, but he always sleeps in Ian’s old room - taking the top bunk while Ian sleeps in his old bed. Ian secretly thinks that Mickey likes to be up high so he can keep an eye out for danger.

But when Ian pads down the hall to his room, Mickey isn’t on the top bunk, already settling in for the night. He’s standing in the middle of the bedroom, looking around at the faded posters on the wall, peering at the family photos that Ian keeps on his bedside table. He hears Ian approach, and looks back at him, flicks his gaze up and down Ian’s body.

‘You’re filling out, Free Range,’ Mickey says, his voice low and hungry.

Suddenly, Ian’s heart is pounding. There’s a feeling in his stomach like he swallowed something while it was still too hot to eat.

Mickey finally lets gravity have its way and his sweater falls off his shoulders, down his arms, spilling onto the floor. He breaks eye contact, pulls his stained old tank top over his head. Kicks off his boots, shucks his sweats off his hips, steps out of them when they pool around his ankles.

And Ian isn’t really sure why this is happening now, but he doesn’t care. The noises are rising to a crescendo outside but Ian ignores them, walks the rest of the way to the bedroom, stops in front of Mickey. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, reaches out like he’s done a thousand times in his fantasies, rests the fingertips of his right hand against Mickey’s firm, pale stomach. Mickey looks down at Ian’s fingers, then up at his face, lifting his chin in a challenge that Ian gladly accepts.

He shuts the bedroom door behind them.


	3. Domestic

One of the many perks of having sex with Mickey, Ian had thought, would be that Mickey would lose interest in eating him. Once they crossed that line from occasional dinner companions to lovers, Ian had assumed that he would be firmly struck from from the menu. It isn’t until Ian encourages Mickey to talk dirty to him that he begins to question that assumption.

It’s a cool night, a little way into fall. It’s Mickey’s turn to play host, and the gun store’s air is thick with smoke and the smell of slowly cooked meat. Ian has Mickey naked and perched on the counter, is standing between his spread knees with one of Mickey’s bare feet hooked lazily behind Ian’s thigh. Ian scores Mickey’s back lightly with his nails, tugs him in closer, kisses his way up Mickey’s throat and bites his earlobe and murmurs, ‘What do you want to do?’

He feels rather than hears the low rumble of Mickey’s moan. Then Mickey admits in a raw, dark voice: ‘I wanna eat you. Fuck, I wanna  _ eat _ you, Ian.’

It’s a bit of a record scratch moment. Ian pulls back to stare at Mickey. He looks better without his clothes on, albeit still dirty and unkempt. His skin is pale and lightly furred and dotted with scars, his body strong and compact, and he has a lovely uncut cock nestled in the coarse curls of his pubic hair. He’s as uninhibited here as he is in everything else, surging forward when Ian backs off, clinging hungrily.

Ian wraps Mickey’s legs and arms tighter around his own body, lifts him up, carries him over to the makeshift bed. He lays Mickey out on his stomach, pushes his thighs apart and eases his way inside and it’s great, it’s fucking perfect, Mickey panting and bucking eagerly until Ian comes exquisitely inside him. And afterwards, they don’t talk about what Mickey said.

It’s not just a one-off, though. The next time it happens is at Ian’s house, and he wants to stick his fingers in Mickey so he shoves them in Mickey’s mouth first. ‘Get ‘em wet,’ he instructs, before flattening his tongue over Mickey’s nipple, tasting his salty skin.

Mickey obediently closes his mouth around Ian’s fingers, wetting them with his saliva. And then he closes his teeth on them as well, and Ian thinks he’s just teasing. Then it starts to hurt, and he’s not so sure.

‘Ah.’ He winces at the bruising pressure, tries to tug his hand back, lifts his head. ‘Hey, cut it out.’

Mickey grins around Ian’s fingers, baring his clenched teeth, caressing Ian’s trapped fingertips lovingly with his tongue even as the sensuality of the gesture is belied by the gradual tightening of his jaws.

His heartbeat quickening in panic, Ian tries again to jerk his fingers out of Mickey’s mouth, but only succeeds in yanking Mickey’s head forward briefly before Mickey rears back again, like a playful puppy engaged in a chew toy tug-of-war. It isn’t until tears prick at Ian’s eyes and he cries out Mickey’s name in a small, hurt voice that he finds his fingers released. He brings them to his chest protectively, looks down at the ugly red indents between his first and second knuckles.

‘Got ‘em wet,’ Mickey murmurs, breaking the silence. He looks a little dazed, and he shifts his legs impatiently. ‘C’mon,’ he prompts again, when Ian doesn’t move. 

And for a moment Ian considers calling a time-out, confronting Mickey about what just happened. But Mickey looks so tempting laid out like this, so vulnerable with his softest parts laid bare that Ian feels silly for being frightened of him. So instead of talking about it, Ian slips his wet fingers down behind Mickey’s balls, gives him what he needs. Within minutes Mickey is spurting hotly onto his stomach, moaning and clutching weakly at Ian’s arms, arching away from where Ian’s fingers are hooked inside him as ecstasy gives way to sensitivity.

So Ian shrugs off that incident as well, though he does quietly decide never to take Mickey up on the offer of a blow job.

Mickey calls Ian by his real name now most of the time, which is an improvement, but he still drops casual comments over dinner about how he’d like to slice Ian into steaks, and how he would prepare the meat, and what he’d cook it with. One night Ian staggers home after an exhausting day climbing his way to the top of a building with a broken staircase, searching for hidden treasures on its upper floors. Mickey frowns when he sees Ian wincing, tells him to lay down on his stomach, and then straddles Ian’s ass and starts massaging his shoulders.

Ian closes his eyes, groans in pleasure as Mickey feels out the knots in his back and gently but firmly loosens them with his fingers. It feels nice in more ways than one. It feels like Mickey taking care of him.

‘My uncle once told me that in Japan, they have these specially bred cows,’ Mickey says quietly, pushing the heels of his hands up Ian’s back in long strokes. ‘They’re super spoiled. They’re kept tied up, and they’re fed beer, and every day the farmers massage them. All they do all day is just sit around and drink beer and get massaged.’

Mickey doesn’t usually talk this much. Ian likes it, likes the soothing rumble of his voice, coupled with the shifting pressure of Mickey’s hands on his back. He closes his eyes, hums in acknowledgment, relaxes deeper into the mattress.

After a moment, Mickey carries on. ‘They’re kept tied up so they don’t exercise too much and get all tough,’ he explains, rocking his fingers into a sore spot above Ian’s left shoulder blade. ‘They live these fat, happy lives, and then when they’re slaughtered the steaks are so soft they melt in your mouth. They’re the most expensive steaks in the world.’

When the speech is over, Ian considers it for a moment as Mickey’s hands seek out all the sore spots on his back. Then quietly, dangerously, Ian asks: ‘Mickey. Are you _ tenderizing  _ me?’

Mickey’s hands still for a moment. He doesn’t reply.

Ian rolls suddenly, bucks Mickey off his back, knocks him onto the floor and falls on top of him. Mickey snarls as Ian pins his wrists down, presses his knee against Mickey’s crotch as a clear warning, glares into his wild, dirty, sneering face.

‘Are you just fucking with me?’ Ian demands. ‘I can’t ever fucking tell if you’re serious.’

‘Serious?’ Mickey echos mockingly.

‘Do you like me, Mickey?’ Ian presses, desperate. ‘Or are you just softening me up for when you kill me and eat me?’

Mickey tries to throw him off, fails. ‘Thought you didn’t care,’ he retorts sharply.

Ian groans in exasperation. ‘Just be fucking straight with me, for once. Please.’

There’s a silence, punctuated only by the harsh drag of their breathing. It’s Mickey who eventually breaks it, the tension around his eyes softening as he looks up at Ian.

‘I like you,’ he confesses in a raw whisper.

Ian loosens his grip on Mickey’s wrists fractionally.

‘And I want to eat you,’ Mickey continues, in the exact same tone.

Ian storms out of the room, slams the door shut behind him, curls up in the master bedroom on a big, cold bed, his anger and confusion a heavy weight in his chest. He falls asleep alone, but when he wakes up Mickey is curled against his back, naked, the unwashed smell of him thick in the air. Ian tells himself it’s an apology, because that’s what he needs to believe if he’s going to keep Mickey in his life. He tells himself that Mickey was just kidding about wanting to eat him, because he needs to believe that, too.

But the next time Mickey comes over he presses up behind Ian while he’s cooking and he murmurs seductively: ‘I could just take a slice, just a small cut.’ He cups Ian’s left buttock in one hand, strokes his thumb over the tensed muscle. ‘Maybe from here. Just to see how you taste. You wouldn’t miss it.’

Ian pushes him away. But later, when they’re fucking, he closes his eyes and thinks about how Mickey looks when he eats, about the blissed-out expression on his face and the mess he makes. When they fall asleep, Ian dreams that he’s an antelope springing across an African plain, and that Mickey is a lion pouncing and snapping Ian’s neck with powerful jaws. He wakes up with an erection, and it freaks him out.

Fall turns to winter, and when the first snow arrives it comes in the form of a thick blizzard that lasts all day and all night, filling the streets until it’s nearly waist-height on Ian, with no cars or plows to beat it into submission. Mickey is across town at his base on the gun store. Ian can’t get to him, and Mickey can’t get to Ian. The days are too short, and the snow is too deep.

Ian’s solitude lasts a few days, then a week, then two weeks. The previous winter was bad, but this one is much worse. Ian has stockpiled food for the season, but he barely eats. He stares at the pages of his comic books without reading them. He wanders the house listlessly. He masturbates, but loses interest before he can finish. He feels Mickey’s absence like a phantom limb - a deep, untouchable hurt.

Halfway into the third week, Ian snaps. He packs a bag, sits at the front door and listens to the noises outside quiet down as night gives way to the thin light of dawn. When he’s sure the coast is clear, Ian shoves the door open with his shoulders, fighting against the piled-up snow outside, and gets it open wide enough to get out.

About halfway down the street, Ian realizes that his boots are not strong enough to hold up in this weather. The snow is up to his knees, and already his toes are numb from the cold. He could turn back, should turn back, but he doesn’t. He grits his teeth, lowers his head, and continues the long, exhausting journey across town.

Ian almost makes it. Almost. Around midday the weak warmth of the sun melts the topmost layer of the snow, makes it a little easier to move. But the days are so short that it seems like no time at all passes before the shadows are growing long again, the air getting colder. Ian grits his teeth, picks up the pace, tells himself that it’s just a few more blocks. When the sun finally sets, Ian can actually see the gun store in the fading light, but even as he lifts his frozen feet above the snow and tries in vain to run, he knows it’s too late.

He can hear the noises. They’re getting closer. They’re excited.

Aching from the cold and exhaustion, Ian realizes that he’s going to die. He hopes it will happen quickly. He hopes that, in the morning, there’ll be enough left of him that Mickey will finally be able to get his wish. Ian doesn’t really mind the thought of Mickey eating him, if he’s already dead anyway.

The things that come out at night arrive, and Ian lets out a shocked yelp of pain at the first blow, sees his blood spatter darkly onto the snow. He staggers, stumbles, but his body keeps trying to flee - determined to survive even if Ian isn’t. They circle him, and Ian gets the strangest sense that they’re amused, that they’re toying with him. Then there’s another swift strike, and Ian is blinking blood out of his eyes, his head ringing. It’s not going to be a quick death, he realizes. They’re going to draw this out.

The third attack rakes across his lower back, takes him down in a graceless spin. The snow soaks through his clothes quickly, numbs his skin, and Ian is grateful for it. He flops over onto his belly, tries to crawl even as the white walls of snow rise up around him, too soft and powdery to let him get any purchase.

Just as Ian resolves to close his eyes and play dead, so they can get on with the business of ripping him apart, an almighty blast of noise shakes the air. A chorus of outraged shrieks follows, then two more blasts, and the snow is getting kicked up over Ian with a flurry of activity. His coat tightens and tugs under his armpits as he’s dragged along by his collar, dragged through the snow. Ian briefly loses consciousness, before being woken by another deafening crack of sound, a yell. He can’t see anything.

Ian passes out again.

When he wakes up, he knows more time has passed. His body is warmed up and his injuries are hurting. There’s a familiar smell of smoke and copper in the air. Something sharp is pressing into his shoulder, piercing the skin, and Ian whimpers in pain.

Mickey is hunched over him, when he opens his eyes, and Ian’s first thought is that Mickey doesn’t know he’s still alive, and is preparing to eat him. When he tries to flinch away, though, Mickey shushes him and holds him down, and Ian realizes that the sharp pain he’s feeling is from a hooked needle, drawing thick black thread across the rifts in his skin, pulling the edges back together.

To distract himself from the pain, Ian stares up at Mickey under hooded eyelids, watches his face. Mickey looks tired and unhappy. There are deep furrows between his eyebrows, and he’s pulled his lower lip between his teeth in concentration. His fingers are clumsy as he stitches, unused to such delicate work.

‘Hey,’ Ian husks, as Mickey ties off a knot, cuts the thread. ‘Did you… cut any bits off… while I was sleeping?’

A little of the tension eases from Mickey’s face. His lips quirk into a half-smile.

‘I don’t mind,’ Ian continues. ‘And if I die… if I die, you can eat me. I don’t mind.’

Mickey dips a rag in a bowl of strong-smelling alcohol, wipes the blood from Ian’s shoulder.

‘I read this article once,’ Ian says in a dreamy voice. ‘About dogs who eat their owners when they die. They get shut indoors, and they need to survive, so they eat the person they love most in the world.’

He stops talking while Mickey makes him drink some water from an old beer bottle, tipping it against Ian’s lips with his dirty, bloodstained hands, with all the gentle care of a farmer bottle-feeding a newborn lamb.

After, Mickey lies down next to Ian on his humble little bed, his body outlined in the soft orange glow of the fire. They’re probably the last two people left alive in Chicago, maybe the last two people left alive in the world.

At last, Mickey speaks, his voice soft and a little wondering as he stares into Ian’s face. He says, ‘Ian.’ He says, ‘I want to _ eat  _ you.’

And finally, Ian gets it. And he smiles.


	4. Dry Aged

Somehow - he isn’t really sure how - Ian has managed to con Mickey into doing work that doesn’t involve killing anyone or anything. They’re round the back of Ian’s house, in the now-sprawling vegetable garden that he’s cultivated over the years, and Mickey is watering the plants with a battered old metal watering can while Ian carefully harvests tomatoes. He takes them delicately between his fingers, applies pressure to check their firmness, and only twists them off the vine if he’s sure they’re ripe.

The Gallagher house is like a little oasis in the chaotic ruin of Chicago. All around them the city is growing wilder and more overgrown, but Ian’s little patch of land is neatly organized, lovingly maintained. Mickey’s gun store is more like a cave: it looks just like everything else from the outside, but inside it’s a messy, cluttered little space full of stuff that Mickey has dragged home over the years - including, sometimes, Ian.

Mickey squints irritably in the bright sun, swipes a hand over his sweaty forehead and leaves a fresh streak of dirt. Ian smiles affectionately, saunters over to him and holds out a tomato.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘Take a bite of this.’

Mickey looks down at it and wrinkles his nose, like Ian just offered him a dog turd. ‘ _Fuck_ no,’ he retorts. ‘Raw tomato is gross.’

Ian smothers a grin of amusement. ‘And human flesh isn’t gross?’ he counters.

‘Hey, at least I cook it first. I’m not a savage.’

Ian does laugh at that, because Mickey looks exactly like a savage. His clothes are filthy and full of holes, and his skin is permanently covered in grime. Mickey seems to realize quickly why Ian is so amused, and he grins widely, shows off his teeth, drops the watering can carelessly on the grass and presses up close to Ian.

‘Something funny, Free Range?’ he purrs. With Mickey this close, Ian can see where he’s caught the sun - a slight reddening over his nose and cheeks, and on the rounds of his bare shoulders. Ian sets his bucket of tomatoes down, brushes slow kisses over Mickey’s hot skin as he straightens up again. 

Ian doesn’t know why he says it. He never intended to actually bring it up. But the crop yield is good today and the sun is warm on his back and Mickey is warm against his front, and Ian is suddenly so happy that he blurts out, ‘Hey, you know it’s our anniversary this week?’

‘The fuck you talking about?’

‘I mean, almost exactly one year ago I got stranded out in the city and took shelter in your gun store,’ Ian explains, stroking his thumb affectionately over Mickey’s cheek.

Mickey considers this for a moment, then grins. ‘And I handcuffed you to a pipe.’

‘And told me you were going to eat me.’

‘Hey, I wasn’t lyin’. Just ain’t got around to it yet.’

Ian smirks, dips down and kisses Mickey on the mouth, which… well, it’s an acquired taste. It’s not so bad later in the day when Mickey has had something to eat and drink, but first thing in the morning his breath is pretty deadly. Ian is kind of amazed that he doesn’t have any cavities or gum disease, given that Mickey probably hasn’t brushed his teeth for years.

Mickey bites Ian’s lower lip teasingly, just hard enough to leave a mark, then pulls back a little and asks, ‘So when is it?’

‘The anniversary? Friday. And Saturday, I guess. Friday night for the first time I saw you, Saturday morning for the first time you saw me.’

‘How many days is that?’

Right. Sometimes Ian forgets that Mickey doesn’t track the days of the year as closely as he does. ‘Four days. Today is Monday.’

So they make a plan. Mickey will come over, Ian will cook, and afterwards they’ll bang. Ian doesn’t point out that this is pretty much like any other day, because he’s too pleased that Mickey actually wants to do something to mark the occasion. Mickey’s version of romance generally involves telling Ian how badly he wants to eat him, and which bits he’d eat first, and how he would cook them. Now, Ian’s never been the kind of guy to expect a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates, but there’s got to be some kind of middle ground.

Having made plans for the anniversary dinner, however, it occurs to Ian that he doesn’t really know how to do romance either. He was only a teenager when everything fell apart, and being gay wasn’t something that you advertised in the South Side. His entanglements were pretty much limited to quick, secret fucks at school or at work. He’s never been on a proper date, never bought anyone a Valentine’s Day gift, let alone an anniversary gift.

Plus, it’s not like Ian can run out to Barneys and buy something. There is technically still a Barneys in Chicago, but the last time Ian passed by there was a pack of mangy wild dogs living in its ruins.

So for a couple of days Ian is totally stuck for ideas. Then, an idea comes to him, and he sort of wishes that it hadn’t.

* * *

Friday rolls around - a warm, lazy summer evening. Ian doesn’t really get to enjoy it, though. Preparations for the anniversary dinner have taken all day, and by the time he hears the usual blunt hammering at the door he’s feeling exhausted and fractious. He walks stiffly to the front of the house, does his best to calm his nerves, and opens the door.

And stares.

For perhaps the first time in the whole time that Ian’s known him, Mickey looks uncertain. He scratches the back of his head, and his eyes dart away from Ian’s gaze, glancing around the porch. Finally he snaps, roughly: ‘Don’t go fuckin’ expecting this every day. This is a one-time thing.’

Ian manages to unstick his voice. He says, ‘I won’t.’

‘This was a fuckin’ pain in the ass, you know?’ Mickey continues, scowling. ‘Fuck knows why you do it so often. Not like I give a shit.’

‘Mickey,’ Ian says. ‘You look…’

Mickey chews his lip, shifts his feet.

‘Clean,’ Ian finishes. And then he laughs, breaking the tension a little. ‘Holy shit, you’re fucking _clean_.’

If anything, Mickey’s scowl only deepens. It doesn’t spoil the effect, though. He is, indeed, clean. His hair looks soft and shiny, his skin is pale and exposed without its usual veneer of sweat and dirt, and he’s wearing an honest-to-god suit. A cheap suit, and one that obviously hasn’t been ironed, but it’s a suit all the same. He looks almost like a completely different person - even his eyes look bluer than usual, in contrast to the whiteness of his skin. He’s gorgeous. Utterly, breathtakingly gorgeous.

Ian steps down onto the porch so he’s standing right in front of Mickey, so close that he can reach up and brush his thumb over Mickey’s lower lip, touch his fingers to Mickey’s cheek. And he does.

For a moment, Ian forgets that the world has fallen apart, that his family is probably dead and he has no real future, and this city is empty and crumbling. It’s like the last nine years of his life never happened, and Ian is just a teenager again, standing on the porch of his family home, with a hot guy standing in front of him in a suit, ready to go on a date. It’s a fragile illusion, so fragile that Ian hardly dares to breathe in case he breaks it.

And he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to tell Mickey how much this means to him, how touched he is by the gesture. Ian just hopes that Mickey is smart enough to figure all that out by himself, because what Ian actually says is:

‘Did you steal my soap?’

Mickey punches him hard in the shoulder, and Ian laughs even as he winces and clutches at the sore spot.

‘Motherfucker, this is the last time I clean up for you. Get the fuck out of my way, I’m hungry.’ And Mickey shoves rudely past him, leaving Ian standing on the porch, staring stupidly at Mickey’s retreating back.

The sun will be setting soon. Ian draws the various bolts on the door, plus the chain. The nights were pretty bad for a while after he was attacked. Ian had nightmares about the things he half-saw as they circled him, was paranoid about them getting in the house, drove Mickey crazy with his restlessness whenever they slept over at each other’s homes. Now, though, Ian’s more or less back to treating his nighttime precautions like any other routine. He’s learned to block out the noises again.

Mickey’s in the kitchen when Ian finishes locking up, lifting the lid off the slowly simmering pot and wrinkling his nose. ‘Well, at least these ones are cooked,’ he comments, poking at the vegetable stew with a dented old spoon. ‘If I came over here and found out you’d made a salad I’d have walked right the fuck back out again.’

Ian hesitates, takes a deep breath, screws up all his courage and says, ‘Hey, Mickey? Could you… could you come here for a second?’

Mickey looks up, sets the lid back down on the pot, saunters over. Ian had expected he’d be dealing with dirty Mickey in his usual torn-up clothes, and the suit is throwing him off. It makes Mickey more intimidating somehow. He looks so _normal_ that Ian kind of feels like a freak by comparison.

‘Um.’ Ian tries to remember what he’d planned to say. ‘You wanna sit down?’

He gestures towards the faded old couch. Mickey raises his eyebrows, but obliges, the rusted springs creaking in complaint as they take his weight. Ian sits down carefully in a chair, rubs the palm of his right hand with the thumb of his left.

Just as he senses Mickey getting annoyed and restless, Ian stammers, ‘I didn’t know what to get you. I mean, you saved my life. More than once, probably. I think if I hadn’t met you, I woulda… I mean, I don’t think I’d have stuck around.’ He shakes his head in frustration and curses, ‘ _Fuck._ This is so goddamn weird.’

He chances a quick look over at Mickey, who just looks confused. And suddenly Ian knows that he needs to do this now, or he’s going to chicken out and _god_ what a fucking waste that would be.

Not looking at Mickey, Ian grabs the tupperware box from the end table next to his chair and shoves it blindly towards the couch. ‘Here. It’s for you.’

He feels Mickey tug the box free from his fingers, closes his eyes as he listens to the curl and pop of the tupperware lid being removed. There’s a long beat of silence.

Then Mickey says, ‘What…?’ But that’s all he says.

Ian knows that Mickey is staring at him, but he can’t bring himself to look up. To the floor he says, ‘I wanted to give you something… something that you’d like. Something that you wanted.’

There’s another pause. Then Mickey says, ‘Fuck.’ He asks, ‘Is this _you_?’

Ian opens his mouth, but the reply sticks in his throat. But then he can’t avoid looking at Mickey any more because Mickey is kneeling in front of him, his hands hovering hesitantly over Ian’s knees, his eyes glancing up and down Ian’s body.

‘Are you OK?’ Mickey questions softly, and distantly Ian feels surprised that this is the first reaction, the first thing that Mickey thinks of.

‘I’m OK,’ he replies. ‘I… everything was sterile. I stitched it up. And I’ve got some penicillin, just in case.’

Mickey is still looking up and down Ian’s body, searching. He doesn’t say anything, but Ian knows what he’s wondering. He takes Mickey’s hand, squeezes it reassuringly, and then gently places it on his left thigh, about halfway up.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘Careful, it’s still… I did it today.’

Finally, Mickey looks up into Ian’s face, his eyes wide, troubled. Again, Ian is surprised. This isn’t the reaction he expected. It’s a lot quieter, for one thing. Less celebration. The moment feels raw, charged, unstable.

‘Did it hurt?’

Ian swallows. He knows Mickey will detect a lie. ‘Yeah, it hurt. I actually meant to… There was supposed to be more. But I kind of pussied out.’ He chuckles hoarsely.

Mickey glances back down at where his hand is resting on Ian’s thigh. Ian can’t see his face now, can’t guess what he’s thinking. But after a moment Mickey goes back and sits down on the couch. He picks up the box and stares at its contents.

‘Do you like it?’ Ian asks tentatively, when he feels like the silence has stretched on too long.

Mickey inhales deeply through his nose, lets it out in a long sigh. ‘I’ve… shit, I’ve thought about this so much. Sometimes I wanted it so bad I could hardly stand it.’ He doesn’t look happy, though. Suddenly, he looks up sharply and snaps, ‘Don’t do it again. Don’t fuckin’... you don’t do this again, you hear me? I’ll kill you, I’ll fuckin’ kill you and eat you if you do this again without telling me, I swear…’

‘Woah, woah, woah’ Ian interrupts, because it looks like Mickey is actually getting _upset,_ and that freaks him out. ‘Don’t go getting any ideas. I’m not gonna make a habit of this. It’s a one-time thing.’

Mickey looks back down at the box. ‘I never thought…’ He cuts himself off, then tries again. ‘It just doesn’t feel like I thought it would.’

Ian manages a smile. ‘Well, the important thing isn’t how it feels. It’s how it tastes.’

He wanders into the kitchen, takes the vegetable stew off the little stove. He’s set aside a frying pan, a small amount of cooking oil, and he hopes that their meaning is self-explanatory. He busies himself with laying the table and serving up the stew, and while he’s doing it he can hear Mickey quietly working behind him. As he’s serving up the second bowl of stew, Ian hears an unmistakeable sizzle that sends a shiver down his spine. He doesn’t turn around, suddenly decides he doesn’t want to see it, but he can’t do anything to avoid the smell.

He breathes in tentatively, worried that he might freak out or vomit. But it’s fine. It’s just meat.

Ian takes a seat, eats a mouthful of stew. It’s good. Mickey joins him, sits opposite him, sets down a small plate next to his bowl. There’s not much on it, Just a morsel, really. But Mickey is looking at it reverently, like he can’t believe it’s really there.

‘Don’t let me get cold,’ Ian says. And Mickey looks up across the table. He smiles - a broad, tender, playful grin. And then he picks Ian up, and eats him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was in part inspired by two Dutch TV presenters who had small bits of their flesh surgically removed and ate each other on live TV over a candlelit dinner with wine. The whole thing was weirdly homoerotic. Possibly because one guy was eating a bit of the other guy's butt.


	5. Game

Mickey disappears.

Ian isn’t sure that he’s really gone at first, or maybe he just doesn’t want to believe it. After five days with no sign of Mickey he tells himself that maybe he’s just on a hunting trip - scouting farther afield for prey. After a week he makes the trek over to the gun store, even though it’s Mickey’s turn to visit him, just to see what’s going on. He finds cold ashes in the fire and the rainwater catcher that he made for Mickey overflowing, but just repeats the hunting trip story to himself and heads home again. He visits again several times over the next two weeks, and each time finds Mickey’s home untouched.

As the milestone of a month with no sign of Mickey approaches, Ian starts to accept the overwhelming likelihood that Mickey is dead.

It wouldn’t be surprising, of course. Millions of people have died in this city - even natural-born survivors like Mickey - and Mickey leads a reckless, violent existence. He stays out too close to sunset, and his favorite quarry when hunting is humans, who have a tendency to fight back. Maybe he got torn apart by a pack of wild animals, or shot by one of his would-be victims, or maybe he stayed out after dark and the things that come out at night got to him. There are a thousand and one plausible ways in which Mickey could have met his end.

Ian still sets a place for Mickey at dinner, every night, and stares at the empty plate while he eats. He feels numb inside, like his soul has taken a leave of absence as well and a stranger is operating his body. A single month with no human contact feels much longer than the three years he spent before meeting Mickey.

Things get even worse when a bunch of Ian’s crops spoil and he’s forced to ration what little food he has left. The hunger gnaws away inside him and gets mixed up with the pain of his grief, which is hardly surprising. Ian has always associated _Mickey_ with _food_ : from the moment they first met and Mickey tried to turn him into a meal, to their irregularly scheduled dinners, to Ian’s anniversary gift.

At night he rubs his thumb over the scar on his thigh, vaguely and irrationally anxious that he might rub the skin smooth again, but unable to stop himself. It’s proof that Mickey was really here - that Ian didn’t simply imagine him.

Ian keeps counting the days off, and keeps tending to his garden, and keeps scavenging, and keeps checking to make sure he has enough water supplies. But at the back of the mind is the dreadful realization that this could be it, for the rest of his life. He might never see another person again. He might just live like this until starvation or monsters or sickness or - god forbid - old age carries him off.

If he died, Ian wonders, would he be reunited with everyone else who died? Maybe everyone else is having a party in the afterlife, and he’s waiting here stupidly in the lobby. Maybe Mickey’s waiting for him, and wondering what’s taking so damn long.

The next crop of vegetables is abundant and healthy, and Ian is no longer in danger of starving to death. A small part of him is disappointed.

 

* * *

 

Ian is out scouting for leftover supplies in a block of the city he hasn’t already cleaned out when he sees the dog.

It’s a young pit bull, still a little awkward from puppyhood, and when Ian sees it trotting out from an alley his first, stupid thought is that he should try to tame it and take it home so he can finally have a little companionship again - even if it’s just an animal. But Ian has no treats to tempt the dog with, and when it spots him and starts growling threateningly his focus quickly turns to the matter of how might defend himself if the dog charges him. His hand inches towards the knife that he keeps strapped to his thigh, and the dog’s growling intensifies as it zeroes in on the movement.

Then it freezes abruptly and goes dead silent, listening. It turns its head to look back at the alley that it just ran out of. It whimpers, and then takes off running again like the devil himself is at its heels.

If Ian were smarter, he would have started running as soon as the dog did. But he’s an idiot, and so instead he just frowns at the fleeing animal and then looks at the entrance to the alleyway, hearing the rapid _pad-pad-pad_ of something running.

A couple of seconds later, a thing bursts out of the alley. It’s draped in rags and smeared in dirt and dried blood, and it snarls as it runs - sprinting right past Ian and chasing after the dog. Ian pulls out his knife warily as the dog wriggles under a fence and the creature chasing it arrives too late, smashing into the fence and gibbering with fury as the dog gets away.

“Jesus Christ,” Ian murmurs, his hand tightening on the hilt of his knife.

The person - and it _is_ a person, from what Ian can see now that it’s standing still - pushes itself back off the fence in frustration and turns slowly, its shoulders heaving and its fingers curled into claws at its side. And it’s then that Ian recognizes him, even from a distance, even under all that grime.

“Mickey?” Ian calls out, uncertainly.

Mickey starts walking towards him, slowly, and with a none-too-friendly expression on his filth-smudged face. And Ian might be an idiot, but he’s not stupid enough to run towards Mickey and try to greet him properly when Mickey’s looking at him like that.

He holds his hands out uncertainly as Mickey starts walking faster, treading with greater purpose and determination, until he’s close enough that Ian can see how hollow his eyes are, and hear the rough-edged snarling noises leaking out of his throat. Distantly, Ian thinks it would probably be very romantic if he put the knife down and trusted in Mickey’s memories of him and their former closeness to bring him back to his senses. But the world they live in is not a romantic one.

“Oh shit,” Ian mutters. Then he turns on his heel and starts running, as fast as he can.

His sudden movement draws a wordless shout from Mickey and Ian senses rather than hears the other man break into a sprint behind him. He has the advantage of longer legs, a healthy breakfast in his stomach, and a natural aptitude for running, but Mickey is driven by hunger and bloodlust and it isn’t long before he starts closing the distance between them enough that Ian can hear his ragged breaths.

There are a few long seconds of dreadful inevitability when Ian sees Mickey catching up to him in his peripheral vision, and then he’s being violently tackled to the ground. He tries to soften the fall, but it’s difficult with Mickey pinning his arms to his side and in the end all he can do is turn his head as the ground comes rushing up towards him, so he doesn’t break his nose.

Mickey lands clumsily as well, struggling to recover from the fall, and so Ian blinks the blood out of his eyes and pulls his arms free and then elbows Mickey _hard_ in the face. His attacker grunts in pain, but it only seems to lend him even more strength, and suddenly Ian finds fingers trying to claw their way into his eye sockets as Mickey spits and snarls. Ian tries to push him away, gagging at the hideous stink of Mickey’s long-unwashed body.

“Stop,” he wheezes, hearing the snap of teeth near his throat as he just barely manages to hold Mickey off. “Mickey, stop, stop, it’s _me_ , it’s Ian.”

His words don’t even seem to register. Ian fumbles for the knife at his thigh and manages to pull it out while holding Mickey off by his throat. He raises the blade until it’s aimed at the back of Mickey’s neck, and tries to steal himself to drive it down into the soft flesh. Because Mickey doesn’t recognize him any more, and Mickey is definitely trying to kill him.

But Ian can’t do it. Mickey might be a mindless wretch now, but he’s the last human connection that Ian has in this world. So instead he flips the knife up in his hand and slams the hilt into the back of Mickey’s head - once, twice, three times in quick succession. The first blow stuns Mickey enough that he stops trying to gouge Ian’s eyes out, and the third blow is what finally knocks him unconscious. He slumps down limply on top of Ian, who has to swallow hard and hold his breath to avoid puking from the smell.

He could still choose to put Mickey out of his misery, but instead he grabs a roll of duct tape from his first aid kid and binds Mickey’s legs together, and his arms behind his back, and then slaps some tape over his mouth for good measure. He doesn’t want Mickey waking up and trying to eat him on the way home.

 

* * *

 

Ian doesn’t own a set of handcuffs like Mickey, but he does have an old dog collar and leash left over from a scam that he and Lip had pulled back in the day. For half a second he considers putting the collar around Mickey’s neck, and then he feels ashamed of himself for having such a thought and buckles it tightly around Mickey’s bound wrists instead, tying the leash to the long-defunct heater in Fiona’s old room and laying Mickey out carefully on the bed. He gets a pillow and a blanket from his room and tried to arrange his captive into a semi-normal sleeping position, vaguely hoping that if Mickey wakes up in a real bed it will remind him that he’s a human being and not a wild animal.

Those vain hopes are dashed about half an hour later, as Ian is heating water over the fire in a metal bucket. Upstairs he hears the unmistakable groaning and creaking of metal as Mickey starts pulling on his leash, and then a series of muffled bangs and faint vocalizations. Ian takes a deep breath, gathers up his things, and heads up the stairs.

Mickey is off the bed and crouched by the heater when Ian opens the door. He’s managed to work the tape halfway off his mouth and the skin underneath looks red and sore. He glares viciously at Ian and hunches down lower like he’s about to attack, but with his hands and legs bound he’s all but helpless.

“It’s OK,” Ian says, trying to sound soothing instead of frightened. “I’m not going to hurt you, Mickey.”

Mickey’s eyes flicker down to the bucket that Ian’s carrying, and narrow in suspicion.

“It’s just water. We need to get you cleaned up.”

Mickey shrinks backwards like Ian had just told him the bucket was full of highly corrosive acid instead of water. Apparently his personality change hasn’t affected his attitude towards washing.

Ian approaches slowly and cautiously, trying to hunker down low as Mickey shuffles back into a corner, his bright blue eyes peering out hatefully from the filthy mask of his face. The smell is overpowering this close. It’s not really any one specific smell; it’s more like the way that old homeless guys used to smell when Ian passed them on the street - an accumulation of many weeks of sour sweat, coupled with a collection of indistinct grime. Aside from the bump on the head that Ian gave him, however, Mickey doesn’t seem to be injured.

He cringes away from the damp, soapy flannel that Ian holds out to his face, then swings his head violently as Ian touches it to his cheek and kicks out with both legs, nearly knocking the bucket of steaming water over. Ian scowls.

“Alright, you want to do this the hard way? That’s fine by me.”

It’s unclear if Mickey understands or not, but he keeps trying to fight back and so Ian straddles him and holds him down and scrubs the flannel over his face in brisk, firm strokes. The water softens the glue in the duct tape and Mickey finally manages to open his mouth, snapping at Ian’s fingers, but Ian keeps him pinned and moves on to cleaning his neck and chest.

Mickey has lost weight. Ian noticed it first when he was carrying him back to the house, and now he feels the telltale jut of Mickey’s ribs under his fingers. He’s not anorexic-skinny, but he’s definitely scrawnier than he was before, and Ian feels a stab of pity even as Mickey tries in vain to kick him in the balls. There’s a lot more dirt on him than a bucket of water and some soap can deal with, and Ian can’t do more than get the top layer of it off. He also doesn’t feel comfortable taking what’s left of Mickey’s clothes off and scrubbing his nether regions when Mickey’s in this state, so after a while he sets the flannel aside and kneels down opposite Mickey.

“OK, Bamm-Bamm,” he says. “You ready to tell me what happened?”

Mickey just stares at him blankly.

“Do you understand me?” Ian hazards. “You got brain damage or something?”

No response. An idea crosses Ian’s mind.

“Are you hungry?” he asks slowly, deepening his voice a little. Mickey just continues to glare, so Ian persists. “You want me to cook you a nice steak? Maybe fry it up in a pan. A little salt, a little pepper…”

Mickey’s hostility doesn’t waver, but Ian sees an almost imperceptible softening around Mickey’s eyes and then spots exactly what he’s looking for: a subtle movement of Mickey’s lips, and then a hard swallow.

He’s salivating. He understands exactly what Ian is saying. Ian grins triumphantly.

“Oh, so you _are_ still in there,” he says. “Feel like talking again, tough guy?”

Mickey’s expression finally changes then. He stops looking at Ian likes he wants to murder him. His face kind of crumples a little and he licks his lips and murmurs something.

“What?” Ian leans in closer, already overcome with relief at finally getting a real response. “What is it, Mick?”

Mickey jerks his chin, indicating that Ian should get closer, and Ian’s brief moment of optimism sinks down into despair again. Mickey’s not trying to tell him anything; he’s trying to get Ian’s throat within biting range.

Ian rears back again and stands up. “I’ll go get you something to eat,” he says quietly. “And some water.”

The response is a frustrated snarl, all pretense of softness gone, and Mickey trying and failing to kick Ian in the ankles and trip him up. Ian checks that the leash is still secure, then heads downstairs to get supplies with a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He feeds Mickey water from a bottle, like an extremely angry baby, but Mickey turns up his nose at the food that Ian brings to him - vegetable stew and stale crackers. Ian grows desperate, begging him to eat something, but Mickey just scowls and presses his lips together and looks away.

“Come on, Mickey,” Ian pleads. “You’re so damn skinny. Just eat something, anything.”

Mickey looks up at him evilly, under the hood of his eyelids, and drags his gaze deliberately down Ian’s body with obvious intent.

“Not me,” Ian clarifies. “You can’t eat me.”

“Hungry.”

The word momentarily stuns Ian. Mickey grits it out through his teeth, like he resents being forced to speak. His voice is hoarse, indicating that he hasn’t used it to form actual words for a long time.

“There’s food,” Ian replies at last, not wanting to scare off Mickey’s voice again by making a big deal out of it. “There’s food right here, you can have as much as you want.”

But Mickey isn’t interested. “ _Hungry_ ,” he says again, with greater emphasis.

“No,” Ian snaps. “That was a one-time thing, OK? I’m not cutting off any body parts for you when there’s perfectly good food right here.”

Mickey hocks back a glob of phlegm and saliva and then spits it in the direction of the bowl of stew. Ian recoils in disgust. He’s emotionally wrung-out from their reunion and the anxiety that followed, and all of a sudden he finds himself sick of Mickey’s attitude.

“You can eat it, or you can starve,” he says stiffly, standing up and folding his arms. “I’m going to bed. Knock on the wall if you need anything.”

Those last words turn out to be a mistake, as Ian has no sooner gone to his room than he hears a hammering on the wall so aggressive that it makes the window panes shake. Ian goes to check on Mickey the first time it happens, but he’s just met with an evil grin that confirms Mickey doesn’t want anything except revenge.

Ian quietly moves to a different room, though he can still hear the racket of Mickey pounding on the wall. He’s exhausted, but he can’t sleep. He needs to make a decision about what to do with Mickey - whether to keep him here, all tied up, and try to coax him back to a semi-civilized state, or just cut his bonds and set him free again.

Outside, the noises start up. Ian thinks about Mickey all alone out in the deadly wilderness of the city at night. He thinks about going out scavenging and stumbling across Mickey’s corpse, and the thought is unbearable.

No. Mickey stays here. Ian can’t give up on him yet.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Ian checks his traps and is delighted to discover that he’s caught two fat rats. It’s not human meat, of course, but perhaps it will be a more tempting offer for Mickey than vegetables and crackers. Ian roasts the rats slowly over the fire, even adding a little seasoning from his precious little collection, and after some consideration he serves them up on plates at the table, so that he and Mickey can eat breakfast like normal human beings.

It’s all quiet inside Fiona’s room when Ian presses his ear to the door. He pushes inside cautiously, saying, “Hey, I’ve got breakfast…”

The boards have been ripped down from the window and are scattered over the floor, leaving a gaping hole to the outside world.

Ian swears loudly, rushes forward without thinking, and that’s when Mickey bursts out from behind the door and jumps on his back, wrapping his newly-freed arm around Ian’s throat and riding him down to the floor. Ian grabs Mickey’s strong forearm and tugs at it desperately, trying to loosen it enough to allow him to breathe. A little oxygen trickles wheezily into his lungs, and black spots dance in his vision.

Mickey sinks his teeth into the back of Ian’s shoulder, hard enough to bruise. His breath is snarling in and out nasally. His cock is hard against Ian’s ass, and his hips are rutting mechanically, like a dog.

Ian is very confused.

“Are you trying… to eat me… or fuck me?” he grates out, when he finally manages to loosen Mickey’s chokehold.

Mickey flips him over roughly. His eyes are narrowed and mean but he’s grinning - Ian’s blood in his teeth. Ian struggles and then punches Mickey in the kidneys, but this only seems to make him more excited. He shoves the hard lump of his cock against Ian’s stomach, grabs Ian’s hair with one fist to wrench his head back and then slams his mouth down against Ian’s, forcing his tongue inside. It tastes _rancid_. Ian gags, and Mickey bites his lip viciously, drawing more blood.

“Ow!” Ian shouts, and he hits Mickey again - a square blow to the side of his head that rips Mickey’s teeth out of his lip and elicits a grunt of pain.

Bruised, bleeding, and deeply upset, Ian tries to use the moment of weakness to wriggle out from under Mickey, kicking and rolling. But Mickey soon recovers, and when he returns his aggression has diminished somewhat. He strokes his filthy fingers down Ian’s face and furrows his brow and says, “Shhh, shhh,” like Ian is the feral one.

Ian relinquishes, lets his head drop down onto the worn carpet and closes his eyes, feeling a tear trickling down the side of his face and sliding unpleasantly into his ear. “What’s wrong with you?” he begs quietly. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?”

Mickey makes a sorrowful crooning noise in response, lowers his head and licks the wet trail on Ian’s face, his breath hot and ragged. Then he presses his cheek against Ian’s and whispers, unmistakably, “Sorry, sorry…” - still haphazardly rubbing his erection against Ian’s stomach.

For the first time, Ian gets the sense that Mickey is at least _trying_ , so he tentatively rests his hand on the small of Mickey’s back and whispers back, “It’s OK, it’s OK.” Mickey sighs and rolls his hips in slow, shuddering waves, moves his mouth over Ian’s throat, bends his head so that he can taste the skin on Ian’s chest, and then gathers up a mouthful of flesh between his teeth and bites down _hard_ , just above Ian’s nipple.

“ _OW!_ ” Ian yells again, shoving Mickey’s head away, rage suddenly coursing through him. “Stop _fucking_ biting me!” he continues, and on the second word he slams his tightly clenched fist as hard as he can into Mickey’s face.

Mickey rocks back with the impact, letting out an odd whine, and then his hips are curled inwards and there’s a hot mess soaking into Ian’s shirt, oozing through and spilling down his side as it accumulates. Mickey shudders a few more times and then goes limp, resting his full body weight on top of Ian. Blood is gushing out of his nose where Ian hit him.

Ian is still angry, but he wraps his arms around Mickey anyway, closing his eyes and focusing on the flutter of Mickey’s racing heart against his chest.

“Am I going to get rabies now?” he wonders aloud, after a while. “Is that what’s wrong with you?”

A short silence follows. Then Mickey says, “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Ian is still so dazed that he doesn’t even celebrate Mickey finally speaking in full sentences again. “You just got off on me punching you in the face,” he points out. “And ever since I found you, you’ve been trying to kill me. You tried to eat me and fuck me at the same time. That’s not normal.”

“What’s normal?”

He has a good point, Ian supposes. If they’re the last two people left, then really there’s no one to set a baseline for what’s normal except them. What a terrifying thought.

Mickey finally lifts himself up and looks down into Ian’s face. With his stiff, messy hair, the dirt ground into his very pores, and the blood soaking the lower half of his face he looks like a wild thing, but he’s smiling tenderly, showing off his yellow, bloodstained teeth.

“Y’alright, Free Range?”

Ian feels a swelling in his chest at the sound of his old nickname. “Depends. You gonna try and kill me again?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“Breakfast?”

Ian remembers the roasted rats waiting for them downstairs. “Yeah, breakfast.”

He peels the torn remains of the duct tape off Mickey’s wrists and ankles and then pads downstairs, still bleeding freely from the bite marks on his mouth, shoulder and chest. Mickey follows obediently, then curls up on one of the kitchen chairs and eats both of the rats that Ian caught, meat juice running down his chin and mingling with the blood. He really does look like a horror, but he’s all that Ian has in the world.

“What happened to you out there, Mickey?” Ian asks quietly.

Mickey’s eyes flicker over to him, pausing in the middle of licking his fingers clean, suddenly guarded. “Got caught,” he replies in clipped tones.

“By people? Or by…” Ian thinks about the sounds that they hear at night. “...Not people?”

Mickey hunches his shoulders and glowers, and Ian decides to leave the topic behind for another day.

“If you don’t want to go back to the gun store, you can stay here,” he offers tentatively. “You can have your own room.”

“You ain’t afraid I’m gonna kill you in the night?”

“ _Are_ you going to kill me in the night?”

“Maybe.”

Mickey’s eyes are sparkling mischievously. It’s unclear if he’s serious or not, but Ian finds that he doesn’t really care.

“I’ll take the risk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No current plans for extra chapters on this one, I'm afraid - it really is just a series of one-shots set in a fucked-up post-apocalyptic world rather than a proper multi-chapter story. I was inspired to revisit it after reading [an article](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1971.73.1.02a00010/pdf) about "Wendigo Psychosis," which is A) probably not a real thing and B) different from Mickey's symptoms, but I thought this part was interesting:
>
>> People who want to eat human flesh are generally pursuing one of three outcomes. The three outcomes are (1) "preserving" a relationship with some loved one who has been "lost," (2) "solving" ambivalent feelings towards some one, or (3) acquiring some property, such as vitality or courage.
> 
> Kind of romantic!


End file.
